Pratinas

Who is Pratinas?

Pratinas was one of the earliest tragic poets of Athens, he was a native of Phlius in Peloponnesus. About 500 BC he competed with Choerilus and Aeschylus, when the latter made his first appearance as a writer for the stage.

Pratinas was also the introducer of satyr plays as a species of entertainment distinct from tragedy, in which the rustic merry-makings and the extravagant dances of the satyrs were retained. The associations of his home, not far from Corinth, where Arion was said to have established the cyclic choruses of satyrs, may account for his preference for this kind of drama. Pratinas was also a writer of dithyrambs and the choral odes called "hyporchemata".

A monument was erected by the inhabitants of Phlius in honor of Pratinas's son Aristeas, who, with his father, enjoyed the reputation of excelling all, with the exception of Aeschylus, in the composition of satyric dramas, one of which was called Cyclops.

See Pausanias ii. 13; Suidas q.v.; fragments in T. Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci, vol. iii.